


slow pony home

by Counterpunch



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Counterpunch/pseuds/Counterpunch
Summary: tumblr three word prompt: sick, fever, angstAnna doesn’t know how she can be so angry and so soothed by Elsa in this place all at the same time.Elsa came here for answers and Anna stands on Ahtohallan’s shores angry at them. This place demanded so much of Elsa - ofthem- of their family. Hadn’t they given enough? Hadn’t Ahtohallantakenenough?
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 76





	slow pony home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [measure your life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323370) by [theseerasures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseerasures/pseuds/theseerasures). 



> Immediately and _heavily_ inspired by [Chapter 24 of 'Measure Your Life'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323370/chapters/53089603#workskin) of Helen's 'Measure Your Life' series. Go read them all now. Right now.
> 
> Thanks to [arendellesfirstwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arendellesfirstwinter/pseuds/arendellesfirstwinter) for taking a look. Your eyes are always so helpful
> 
> I started using The Weepies lyrics for Frozen oneshots six years ago so I guess am now contractually obligated to continue? Title from song of the same name

She’s sick. She’s absolutely sick to her stomach. This is what she _wanted_ * and she’s nauseated at the sight of it.

Ahtohallan looms large overhead, a seeming unending wall of ice shimmering in the sunlight, blending in with the sky in a glittering sheen of blue and white. It’s cold. She feels dumb thinking it, but it’s so _cold_ even in the parka that Kristoff made for her. She hasn’t felt this cold since...well. Anna remembers flesh turning cold, the horror of all sensation fleeing as her blood frosted into stone-cold crystal.** The parka is plenty warm, but still she rubs her mittens together against the memory

Elsa is wearing nothing more than her usual dress, breath not even misting in the cool air, and part of Anna still squeezes in fear that her sister isn’t really there and it’s just a trick of the sunlight. Her hand reaches out instinctively for Elsa’s hand and exhales only at the touch of solid flesh. She grips tighter.

Anna doesn’t know how she can be so angry and so soothed by Elsa in this place all at the same time. It seems their lives have been an exercise in paradoxes lately, and not just because so much of their lives seemed to switch recently. Are the lines between them blurring or standing in starker contrast? 

Elsa came here for answers and Anna stands on Ahtohallan’s shores angry at them. This place demanded so much of Elsa - of _them_ \- of their family. Hadn’t they given enough? Hadn’t Ahtohallan t _aken_ enough? 

This place stole her sister away. Took her and nearly kept her here, locked in a prison of the past and magic. Elsa’d had enough of that for a lifetime. If it hadn’t been for breaking the dam, Elsa never would have left; just another frozen artifact lost to the depths of history. _I won’t let anything happen to her._ Anna’s jaw hurts from grinding it.

Death didn’t discriminate when it came to their family; it’s taken all of them at one time or another.*** Anna glares at the white expanse in front of her, the small entrance only hinting at the monstrous caverns within. What did it have to offer? 

There are...a lot of feelings running through Anna at any given moment these days when it comes to Elsa. Her and Olaf have had a lot to talk about and process together lately. Namely anger. Anger and Elsa. And not Anna’s usual outrage at the things things that had happened _to_ Elsa (she’s still angry about that hidden-from-everyone-for-thirteen-years thing) or _for_ Elsa, that her broken way of thinking often still had her sister damage herself first instead of reaching out to others. _That_ kind of heartbreaking anger she’s used to.

Sure, there were plenty of times Anna’d gotten frustrated at Elsa’s unhealthy patterns over the past three years, but this was different. This kind of fury felt as strange to Anna as it did for Olaf. It almost felt like a fever, her body trying to kill the virus of resentment. Her and Elsa had traded some heated words about it, but no amount of non-apologies brought her peace. " _I’m sorry I hurt you, Anna, but I’m not sorry I sent you away,”_ she’d said. Elsa had never deliberately caused her pain before. It _hurt._

She hadn’t wanted to talk about it at first, clinging to relief of Elsa’s return and skirting around the cracks in the ice where she knew the depths of her ire remained submerged. It was Olaf who suggested she come here herself. _“You should go,” he suggested gently in the wise way that belied his age. “Wherever I was, it seemed like I was...waiting. Like I wasn’t really gone, but someone was looking after me until I could get back. I wasn’t afraid to leave but it made me sad to go and leave you behind, even though I knew you’d be okay. You taught me to face my fears; that it was as simple as knocking. Maybe...going to Ahtohallan is how you face yours.”_

Ahtollan. Where for the first time, Elsa chose magic over her; the place that Elsa had run to, away from her; the place that Anna wasn’t _enough_ for. It’s stupid, it’s shallow, and completely selfish. Elsa was right, the Dark Sea would have probably killed them both. The Nokk was practically docile when Elsa first introduced them, and Anna has a hard time reconciling her anger with the creature that nearly drowned her sister before carrying her even further away towards death and the one who rescued her from the depths once the spirits released her and she crashed down into the ocean. 

Of _course_ Elsa deserves happiness; it’s all Anna ever wanted for her. She hadn’t been lying, when they stood by the broken bones of their parents’ ship; she didn’t want to stop Elsa from being whatever it is she needed to be. She just…. didn’t want to be shut out. All her family ever seemed to do was leave and she was tired of it. ‘Elsa runs away’ and ‘Anna gets left behind’. She was done with that being what defined them. Done with people making choices _for_ her, without having had a say in the matter.

All Elsa could talk about was how _beautiful_ Ahtohallan was, how _magical_ and _wonderful_ , and Mother was there just _waiting_ for her. But all Anna could see here was death and abandonment. And she’s filled with this awful self-loathing because she’s bitter and petty about the thing that put a light behind Elsa’s eyes and purpose in her bones. 

It was stupid and unfair. Anna never wanted to be the cause of Elsa’s unhappiness and sacrifice again, and that was the worst part. _Had_ she been stopping Elsa from being whatever she needed to become? How long had Elsa tried ignoring the voice that called her? Did Elsa only stay in Arendelle because of her, suffering with and against a burden she never once got to choose or have a say in?

It’s dumb, she _knows_ it’s dumb, and that the answer to those questions is a resounding ‘no’. Elsa herself has told her a thousand times. Sure, the endless queenly duties were often tiring and exhausting, but Anna saw the excitement in Elsa’s eyes when a strategic puzzle presented itself or the almost innocent awe and joy of connecting with her subjects, as if she still couldn’t believe she wasn’t locked away behind a door or in a cage. It never failed to break Anna’s heart. Or make it sing, depending on which side of it she was looking at. 

She hates how anxious and fearful she’d been while they chased the Voice, but in the end she’d been right to worry. She felt an infuriating helplessness in her inability to protect her sister. Is this how Elsa’d felt, after all those years behind a door, only to fail on the fjord? Something _had_ happened to Elsa, and no matter how hard Anna tried, she couldn’t stop it from happening. She could no more change her sister than love her so much for being exactly who she was. At least this time Elsa didn’t die trying to be everything for everyone else. She died being herself _\- finding_ herself. Anna supposes there’s a sick sense of growth in that.

But everything had changed in the three years since the Thaw. Three years since she’d gotten her sister back, and everything about Elsa’s search for the Voice felt like Anna was losing her all over again. Anna didn’t have to run away to find out who or what she was. Granted, she didn’t have to worry about having a mysterious supernatural ability and the burdens of two worlds on her shoulders, but still. 

The truths Anna was searching for weren’t here. Ahtohallan only had the answers that Elsa sought. There was nothing on these shores for Anna except the solid hand in her own. Maybe one day Anna would want to see the caverns and domes Elsa described with such awe, but right now, all she can see is a tomb. 

No. Anna’s truth is behind them, back in Arendelle: the people, their lives, their problems, their passions, their futures. It was in Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven. Kai and Gerda. And Elsa, too, in her own new way. Always Elsa. 

No matter how many memories Ahtohallan reveals, it won’t create new ones. Water has memory, but that’s all it is.* It shows them where they came from but not where they can go, or who and what they can become. The past may echo in the present, but it isn’t _alive_. It doesn’t grow or change. They are the ones who build the future. With Elsa’s hand in hers it creates a bridge of promise and truth. 

Olaf was right, about Anna confronting her anger and fear. 

Anna was right that Elsa would die if she didn’t stop running headfirst into danger. 

Elsa was right that she’d needed to go alone and that the answers and a path for her were at Ahtohallan.

And their mother had been right all along, too - all was lost, and all had been found. (It sure would have been a heck of a lot _easier,_ Anna remarks with more than a hint of bitterness, without keeping secrets behind secrets for them to figure out on their own, but she supposes they all did they best they could.)

Anna had braved what she most feared and made it through. Some things won’t ever change, Anna accepted exasperatedly, like Elsa giving nothing less than absolutely everything of herself. Others wouldn’t stay the same either, like that Elsa could never take back her decision and wouldn’t if she had a choice. But change won't always be a bad thing, like each of them growing alongside each other instead of holding on too tightly and not having room to do so. Or Elsa thinking that Anna will do anything other than sending a full battalion of guards after her next time she heedlessly runs into danger again. She’s queen now, she can do it if she wants to, no matter how angry Elsa will be with her. Her sister has zero legs to stand on, so there.

Death cannot keep them from each other. (Though Anna would very much like to stop testing that theory. Twice was more than enough.) Ultimately, as long as they’ve got each other, they can make it through. Scars heal. People have fights. They learn. They grow. They can do better next time. Take _that_ , stupid ice memories.

And in that measure, Anna’s anger no longer burns like a fever. It warms her from within, a comforting hearth, reminding her what’s important. They still have a _lot_ to talk about. But they’ll do it together, and they’ll continue to do it together. _Take a step. Step again._ They’ll find a new path forward, they always do. Besides, there’s no one else she’d rather walk with, even if they argue sometimes along the way.

“Okay.” Anna says, making her peace with Ahtohallan, “Let’s go.” 

“Wait, what?” Elsa frowns as Anna turns away and heads back towards the ocean instead of pressing onward. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. I’ve had my moment of angst, I’m good. We can go now.”

If ever a Fifth Spirit (or is it, half of one? A two-point-five spirit?) could look confused while standing on the shores of the source of the magic that fuels them, Elsa sure was nailing it. Anna smiled, pleased she’s able to find this whole thing endearing now instead of confusingly infuriating now that some of her feelings have reconciled.

Though Elsa clearly has no idea why Anna asked her to take her hundreds of miles to this destination and spent the journey in a moody silence only to turn back upon arrival, she’s kind enough to not say anything, recognizing that something has shifted in Anna’s demeanor. 

“C’mon,” Anna says, jerking her head back toward the water where the Nokk has materialized as if on her whim. She makes a mental note to investigate that later, and wiggles her fingers in the meantime, beckoning Elsa to join her. Ahtohallan’s shadowy secrets have waited decades, what’s a few more months? “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> *From [Chapter 24 of 'Measure Your Life'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323370/chapters/53089603#workskin)  
> **From ["Forest of Shadows"](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43885679-frozen-2)  
> ***Hamilton


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